Reflections on a Week of Clean Eats

Happy Saturday! We’ve made it through a whole week of detoxing! I have to say that I feel quite accomplished, and I think Jason does too. I woke up early this morning (armed with my camera, $20, and a canvas bag as always) to go to the ‘burg farmer’s market, but when I opened the garage door to leave, I spotted this…

I’m sure they still had the market, but it was a slow, steady rain and I was not about to do my shopping in that. Plus it was FREEZING outside, in the low 60’s. In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve heard no mention of the dreaded ‘F’ season on here. That’s because I’m trying to pretend it’s not happening. I’m stretching this summer out as looong as possible. And shopping in the cold rain does not help that, so I headed back inside to make myself a breakfast fit for a detoxing queen. But first, like we’ve been doing all week, a hot mug of water with half a lemon’s juice squeezed in (helps the detoxing process).

Green eggs, no ham!

It’s actually kale pesto in scrambled eggs, so delicious. I have a kale pesto problem.

On the side, a piece of fruit (I actually don’t know what it is…a cross between a plum and something else!),

and a toasted piece of cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread smothered in Earth Balance.

After breakfast it was time to get comfy in my Snuggie and tune in to see my favorite lady, The Pioneer Woman! I LOVE Ree and I love her show. She was really my very first inspiration to blog and take pictures and I’m totally in love with her. Sorry, Jason.

Jas said it was torture watching her cooking all her buttery deliciousness while we’re on this eating plan. It kind of was. And speaking of which, I want to share with you guys my reflections about the first week of our detox!

The good: Like I mentioned a couple days ago, I’ve literally never eaten so many fruits, veggies, and whole grains as I have this week. It feels AWESOME. Because I got sick early in the week (unrelated to the detox, trust me), I’ve been on meds all week that mess with my energy level so I can’t really attest to what the detox has done for my energy. But I do know that I’ve felt great all week and never experienced that grossly full feeling where you don’t want to get off of the sofa because of what you just ate. I also enjoyed experimenting with some new recipes, some of which are definitely making it into the permament repitoire (helllooo, kale pesto!).

The bad: Our house was still full of stuff that we were abstaining from, which made things tough. I was craving things that I don’t even eat often just because, like chocolate chip cookies and doughnuts and biscuits. It also took more planning to make detox-friendly meals, so days where I didn’t have time to do that planning did NOT work out as well.

The ugly: This thing has been seriously expensive. I spent almost $100 on produce alone this week. Produce is so expensive (especially organic), and since most of our diets were produce this week it really left my wallet hurting. I normally buy a veggie for dinner and fruits as snacks, but buying fruits + veggies for every meal really adds up.

What Jason says: “I don’t feel any different. It didn’t help me at all.”

BAHAHAHA, yes that is literally what he said. He has struggled with this week. He’s extremely picky about fruits and veggies and would eat nothing but meat and bread all day if he could, so this week was not his idea of fun. But between you and me, it did help him. And it will continue to help him, as soon as he gets over being mad at it. 🙂 Hey, sometimes you have to do things for the people you love that they might not enjoy.

We’re adding back in a couple things this next week to make things easier for Jason and just to ease us in to the kind of eating lifestyle that we want to permanently maintain after this week.

Week 2 Detox

• drink plenty of water
• continue to enjoy plenty of fresh fruit (at least 3 servings a day)
• continue to enjoy only one serving of lean animal protein a day
• continue to enjoy 2 cruciferous vegetables a day
• avoid sucrose and high fructose corn syrup but enjoy other types of natural sugar in moderation
• continue to avoid all white products (white flour, white rice, etc.)
• enjoy dairy in moderation

I haven’t been coming up with the most genius recipes lately, but I have something special planned for Soul Food Sunday tomorrow! It’s a classic. And it’s detox-friendly. Can’t wait to share it with you.

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren